Family - What's that?

The word family has a lot of different meanings for me. But foremost it stands for people who support each other, who are there for each other no matter what happens, who fight but still get along with each other, who know each other better than anybody else, who tell what they think even the other person do not like it, and who accept the mistakes of each other – in short a family means people who love each other.

In my case the closest members of my family are my dad, my mum and my two sisters. My dad and my mum are married for 31 years and I can say that they are still happy together and still love each other. Our family is not perfect and we had a lot of hard times but what my family gives me is irreplaceable. These people mean more to me than anything else and I know that they will be always there for me as well as I will be there for them.

However, not everybody has the same idea of a family like me. People get married when they are in college and divorced only a few years later or others have parents who are divorced already 3 times. These stories I hear more and more often from other college students or friends.

So I asked myself what does nowadays family and marriage mean to the people? Is it only a relationship for a limited amount of time and when it does not work out the people go different ways in life? Maybe students think that to marry somebody is the next goal in their lives because that is the normal cycle which everybody follows.

I think to marry somebody is a very important decision and should be made very wisely. I am not against a marriage of a young couple as long as they know that this means responsibility. Especially, when children are involved because the family conditions in which children grow up has an important influence of their future lives and should not be underestimated.

I am aware of the fact that we are not able to predict if a relationship between a couple holds on for the rest of their lives or not. Nevertheless, we should see marriage as an important step in our lives and know what it means to build a family.